


The Things I Would Do

by altocello, mrs_leary (julie)



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Digital Painting, Fanart, M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 13:16:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2774360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altocello/pseuds/altocello, https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/mrs_leary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rupert being so debonair it hurts. Eoin being Eoin. In which Rupert ponders the things Eoin would do to him... if he were so inclined, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things I Would Do

**Author's Note:**

> **Author notes:** This is loosely set while they were filming episode 404 _Aithusa_ in May-June 2012. It was inspired by a photo of Eoin's on [Instagram](http://instagram.com/p/LA_opKC07L/) cross-posted with a caption on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eoincmacken/status/205692259327422464). 
> 
> **Artist's notes:** The art is titled "Wicked Things," and was drawn digitally using GIMP, a graphics tablet, and countless cups of tea. The end notes contain my acknowledgements.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** This is a non-profit fanwork; no harm intended, no money made.

# The Things I Would Do

## Brecon Beacons

Eoin had taken a photo of Rupert a couple of hours before, and posted it to Instagram and Twitter with the caption:  _This guy is so debonair it hurts… the things I would do to him… if I was that way inclined._

Rupert gazed at this in the Twitter feed on his phone for a long moment. A bead of sweat trickled down his nape and soaked into the padded jacket under his chainmail. Not that the sweat had anything to do with the photo, or with the caption per se. Or with Eoin, of course. No, it was an unreasonably warm May day in the Brecon Beacons, with precious little shade available, and Rupert was trussed up in the thirty-nine layers of his costume… That was more than enough to explain the sweat, obviously.

Eoin, however, was in earshot, sprawled uncomfortably on the director’s chair two down from Rupert. So Rupert took the opportunity to query, “Debonair?”

With barely a pause, Eoin turned towards him, and then mimed a hit direct to the heart. “Debonair,” he confirmed. “So much so, I think you’ve broken me.”

“Uh huh,” Rupert replied, scepticism in full force.

“You’ve ruined me for other men.”

“Right…”

They stared at each other – but they were both wearing dark sunglasses, so it was easy enough to maintain a deadpan face.

And then before the moment was even close to becoming awkward, Tom landed heavily in the chair between them. “ _Man_ , it’s hot,” he complained.

“Word,” Eoin agreed, turning away.

Rupert just murmured something sympathetic, sagged a little lower in his chair, and scrolled further down the Tweets.

Later, when it was just Eoin and Rupert again, waiting by the costume trailer with their arms full of sweaty clothes and armour, Rupert asked, “ _What_  things?”

Eoin lifted a quizzical brow. Somehow, despite being evidently too exhausted to make any kind of effort, he still looked like he was posing for an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. Rupert figured he was personifying something like Cool & Arch.

“What things would you do to me?” Rupert clarified.

“Oh…” Eoin said, expression transforming into Overcome & Lust-struck. “Oh man… So many things.” He tilted his head closer, his hair falling forward in a dark smooth waterfall, and he clarified, “ _Wicked_  things.”

Rupert nodded sagely, as if he perfectly understood now and would consider the matter. “Noted,” he said.

Tom inadvertently saved them again, as he and Tomiwa emerged from the trailer, and Rupert and Eoin were called in.

♦

## Porth yr Ogof

The next day they were in the car park above the most awesome cave mouth in South Wales, when Eoin came over to where Rupert was waiting. There was a ramshackle wooden fence near where the path led down to the cave, and a fringe of shade under the neighbouring trees, and Rupert was making use of both fence and shade.

Eoin sauntered right up close, and stood there in front of Rupert with his hips cocked like he was portraying Cool & Sexy. “You’re the kind of man,” Eoin announced with absolutely no bantering foreplay, “that makes another man feel like… falling to his knees.”

Rupert considered him with a raised brow. They were both wearing sunglasses again, of course, so they each maintained suitably blank expressions. “And…?” Rupert prompted.

“Falling to his knees and… paying homage.” And if there was any risk of Eoin’s meaning being unclear, it was soon made perfectly evident by Eoin’s tongue peeking out to moisten his lips.

Rupert nodded, and put on a show of mulling this over. “Interesting,” he finally said.

“And wicked,” Eoin agreed.

“That, too,” said Rupert. And they left it at that.

They’d never know whether the easy if slightly charged silence between them would have grown difficult, as the rest of the cast started down the steps to the cave moments later, and when Marie called them, Eoin and Rupert mingled into the line.

♦

## Sgwd yr Eira

They were in the car heading for yet another location the next morning, another cave, but this time really out in the wilds of Wales. In the early morning light, a pre-caffeinated Rupert was sitting on the back seat in between Eoin and Tom. No one was paying him any attention. Tom was exchanging love-texts with Laura who was home in London, while Eoin lazily exchanged banter with Bradley who was in the front passenger seat. So Rupert continued along happily enough in a fuzzy state of mind, thinking only of coffee and its delights and his need thereof.

Ages passed before Rupert realised that Eoin’s knee – along with portions of his thigh and calf above and below the said knee – was pressed close to Rupert’s equivalent. Rupert contemplated this rather muzzily for a short while. The sensation was warm and… almost pleasant. Though it did occur to Rupert that it was somewhat unnecessary. Tom took up his share of the back seat, yes, that was undeniable. But Eoin and Rupert were both of a size to fit quite neatly in what remained. There shouldn’t be any real need for such… intimacy.

A cold heat exploded within Rupert then, a prickling awareness. He cast a sharp glance at Eoin’s casual sprawl beside him, suddenly thinking,  _Oh my god, maybe he means it._

All of Eoin’s flirting, all his bantering suggestiveness, all his outrageousness… Maybe it was for real. Rupert cast another glance at Eoin – and Eoin replied by slightly increasing the pressure of that presumptuous knee against Rupert’s.

But then a moment later Eoin shifted up taller in his seat, and Rupert’s leg was cold now in the places where Eoin had been warming it so thoroughly. “Sorry,” said Eoin in his charming Irish burr. “Invading your personal space, am I?”

“Mmm,” was all Rupert managed in acknowledgement.

“Shouldn’t be slouching,” Eoin continued in an easy mumble that was all brambles to Rupert: thorns and berries and entwining branches. “Should be sitting  _straight_.”

Had Rupert imagined the emphasis on that last word? “Straight, yes,” he agreed faintly.

Tom laughed, though it might have been at a message from Laura, and then the irrepressible Bradley turned to make a remark about something completely irrelevant.

The moment was over, and the day loomed emptily before them. Rupert sighed, and found himself wishing for a return of the warmth.

♦

Nothing unexpected happened for the rest of that long day – until at last they were being driven back to Cardiff. In the mesmerising dusk, Eoin sat beside Rupert, not touching, and unusually quiet. After a while, Eoin yawned, and stretched – and then instead of slouching against the car door with his knee pressed against Rupert’s, he went for the opposite configuration. Eoin’s arm overlapped Rupert’s by a considerable margin, and Eoin aimed a half mischievous, half imploring gaze back over his shoulder. “Give a man a place to rest, would you?”

Rupert found himself lifting his arm to gather Eoin in against his side, Eoin’s head resting against Rupert’s shoulder, and all of him so warm, so very warm now.

Tom rumbled something about that being a great idea, and lifted his arm to gather Rupert in against his side. Rupert went willingly enough, and as the three of them resettled, they all turned a little so Tom was half-spooning Rupert, who was half-spooning Eoin. Once Rupert found just the right restful slouch, Eoin shifted closer into his embrace, firm against him.

Bradley twisted around to look at them from the front seat, half mocking and half obviously envious. “Comfortable there, are you?”

“Mate,” said Eoin, “you have no idea.” Rupert could feel the slight vibrations of Eoin speaking through their bodies.

Bradley, of course, took a photo of them on his phone. “I won’t be Tweeting it,” he promised.

“I’ll be wanting a copy, though,” Eoin murmured, and moments later Eoin’s phone announced the arrival of a message.

Afterwards, in the peaceful dark, Rupert lifted his other arm around Eoin, and they shifted again just slightly until suddenly all was perfect between them. When Rupert found himself succumbing to the urge to snooze, he let his head fall forwards rather than back, and he buried his nose in Eoin’s hair which smelled luxuriously of honey and lemon… He didn’t drift off into a doze, however. There was too much happening in the here-and-now to bother with the distractions of dreams.

Rupert held Eoin loosely, closely. Pondering the fact that a strong male torso in his arms felt pretty damned wonderful. He didn’t know what the hell to do about that fact, but as he pondered further he decided he didn’t have to do anything at all. It was what it was – and it was good.

♦

## Fforest Fawr

“Wicked things…” Eoin murmured in Rupert’s ear between takes. They were at the bottom of a dizzyingly deep chasm in the forest, with a fern nodding benignly over Rupert’s head, and the dappled sunlight sweet on Eoin’s handsome face.

Rupert carefully maintained his Sir Leon persona. Leon would be so much better able to deal with Gwaine at this juncture. The stalwart Leon would not be vulnerable to the rogue knight, or at least not in the slightly alarming ways in which Rupert seemed to be opening up to Eoin.

“Wicked,  _wicked_  things…”

“Such as…?” Leon coolly prompted.

“Oh… tying you down to your bed, and licking you all over.”

“All over?” Leon clarified.

Eoin faltered, and let a beat go by. Whatever he imagined in that moment made his cheeks flush, just a little. “Oh yeah.  _All._  Over.”

Rupert tried to imagine what on earth could make Eoin Macken blush… and promptly blushed himself. Nevertheless, Leon managed to simply say, “Huh,” in a fairly sceptical tone. He schooled his features and followed that up with, “Well.  _If_  you were that way inclined.”

“If I was,” Eoin agreed, with the barest hint of wistfulness.

♦

[ ](http://orig05.deviantart.net/942d/f/2014/349/b/9/wicked_things_by_altocello-d895aor.jpg)

_Wicked Things_

♦

## London Paddington

All the actors who weren’t Colin or Bradley had a three-day weekend break before they were due to meet at St Pancras on Monday and head for France. During the long train journey from Cardiff, Rupert had the window seat next to Angel, who quite happily read a book throughout, which left Rupert free to stare out at the passing scenery and quietly consider and reconsider his instincts. He finally picked up his phone as the train manager announced their imminent arrival at Paddington station, and he texted Eoin, who had been sitting two rows down with Tomiwa: _Want to grab a drink this weekend?_

Rupert suffered through the next few minutes, afraid of being misunderstood. Or maybe afraid of not being misunderstood.  _Isn’t that an Oscar Wilde quote?_  he pondered – and tried to distract himself by racking his brains for the exact words. Which didn’t work. Oscar Wilde, of course, would be unquestionably and uninhibitedly interested in Eoin Macken. Rupert Young, however, thought that maybe he was just curious. It was true that he’d felt attracted to other men once or twice in his life, but things had never even gone this far before. Such as it was. Maybe it was time to push the limits a little. After all, even if the two of them did go out for a drink, and Rupert cautiously pursued this flirtation, that didn’t necessarily mean that anything more had to happen. Did it? They could enjoy it for what it was. Whatever that was. If it was anything at all.

As the train reached the platform and slowly eased into place, Rupert’s phone finally announced an incoming text. He glanced up, and was rather startled to see that Eoin was already queuing down the far end of the carriage with his luggage, ready to disembark just as soon as he could. That told Rupert everything he needed to know.

He indulged in a disgruntled scowl, and read the text anyway.  _Got plans sorry. Rain check?_

Rupert didn’t bother replying.

♦

## London St Pancras

 _Should have ditched the plans_ , Eoin texted on Monday morning.

Rupert was standing in the Departures hall along with a mixed group of cast, crew and creatives. He stared down at his phone, wondering how to reply. Wondering where Eoin even was. Rupert glanced up, and looked around, but there was no sign of the man. Was Eoin really that nervous about meeting Rupert? And if so, wasn’t that rather an overreaction? It hadn’t even been a date. They hadn’t made plans already. Eoin had just said he couldn’t meet Rupert for a drink. That was all. It wasn’t a big deal.

Another text pinged in.  _Back 2 back meetings on 3 different projects. Exhausted. Should have met you tho._

Rupert sighed. It wasn’t like he didn’t know Eoin was forever madly juggling creative ventures. The man had energy and all kinds of talent, and he loved collaborating, and Rupert loved him for it.

Well, not in  _that_  way. Rupert admired Eoin. Certainly he liked him. Perhaps even loved him as a friend. It was a close-knit group, this cast. There was a lot of love in the air.

A third text arrived.  _Have a drink with me tonight?_

Huh. Rupert dashed out a reply.  _Thought you were exhausted._

 _Not TOO exhausted_ , was the response, complete with a winking emoticon.

_You’re all talk, Macken._

_What if I wasn’t…?_  And Eoin stepped out from the other side of the crowd, and stood there looking at Rupert in a hapless, helpless kind of way as if daring Rupert to have pity on him.

Rupert considered him, trying to maintain an unimpressed expression. Eventually he lifted his phone again and typed out,  _We are still just talking about a drink right?_

Once Eoin had read that, he looked back up at Rupert with a broad laughing grin and a roll of his eyes.  _Sure we are._

Rupert wasn’t quite ready though. Even after all this time and thought, he still wasn’t ready.  _Make it tomorrow night at 8._

Eoin laughed again, and nodded, and sent a text:  _It’s a date._  Then he turned away to talk to Alex, their director for that block.

Rupert frowned down at his phone as if he were reading a news story or a serious email, and lingered there at the fringe of the oblivious crowd.

♦

## Pierrefonds

Time dragged. Time sped by. Rupert was almost breathless with uneasy anticipation.

Finally it was ten to eight on the appointed evening, and Rupert was staring into the full-length mirror in his hotel room, wondering if he’d managed to find an outfit that balanced ‘respect’ with ‘insouciance’. He was too much the gentleman to want to insult his date by dressing poorly – especially when Eoin would probably look like a supermodel even in the rattiest jeans and tattiest t-shirt. But Rupert didn’t want to look like he was trying too hard either. Especially when he wasn’t even sure where all this was heading. Well, not  _entirely_  sure, anyway.

It was ten to eight, and he was just about to head downstairs to the hotel’s bar, when there was a knock at the door. Rupert frowned distractedly, and began trying to think up a plausible excuse to put off whoever was out there – all the more difficult when he himself would be appearing in public only moments later. Damned if he was going to tell anyone that he had specific plans with Eoin, though. Such as they were, those plans.

Eoin, who – Eoin, who was there at the door, when Rupert finally opened it, with his hand wrapped around the neck of a bottle of red wine, and two long-stemmed glasses sticking out from between his fingers. The two men stared at each other.

“I thought –” said Rupert.

“I thought –” said Eoin in the same moment. Then he grinned and ducked his head in his most genuinely charming manner. “I thought you might prefer we do this in private.”

Rupert had been about to take a step back, but now he stalled and stood firm. “Do what, exactly?”

“Work out what, exactly, we’re going to be doing here.”

Anger, or maybe just frustration, surged through Rupert. He took a breath, and managed to ask in relatively reasonable tones, “Are you going to quit dancing about, and just say it?”

Eoin fixed him with a sharp bright gaze. “You don’t want me sayin’ it in the corridor. Let me in.”

Rupert took another breath. Suddenly it was time to decide, when he had thought he’d have a whole evening of conversation and banter in which to do so.

Eoin pushed forward a little – not taking a step, but simply shifting his weight onto his front foot, so he was closer to Rupert but not aggressively so – and Eoin said in a rough murmur, “Rupert. Let me inside.”

Or maybe he’d made the decision weeks ago. Months ago. Rupert took a step back. “Do you do this often?”

“No.” Eoin followed him, matching him step for step.

“Me, neither,” he confessed.

“I figure we’re old enough and wise enough – and damn’ well good enough – to improv something.”

The door swung quietly closed, and the latch slid home. The room was quiet. Rupert took another step and found himself backed up against the dresser. He didn’t flinch when Eoin reached around him – it was only so he could put down the bottle and glasses.

Eoin reached into his jeans pocket and produced a corkscrew. “Let me open –”

“I don’t need seducing,” said Rupert.

“Don’t you?” Eoin said, huffing an ironic laugh. “It’s a good drop, you know. I drove Tomiwa mad, trying to be sure I was choosing the right one. Let’s just consider this a wine-tasting for now.”

“No, let’s not,” Rupert countered – and he lifted his hands to frame Eoin’s gorgeous bold face, tilted it towards him, and lowered his head to at last press a kiss to those provocative lips.

They stayed there for a long moment – and the whole thing still could have gone either way. But then Eoin’s arms slid around Rupert’s waist, and his hands spread palms, fingers and thumbs hard against Rupert’s back, and their meeting of mouths at last deepened into a real kiss, a passionate kiss. Eoin seemed to lift up onto his toes in order to press hips and thighs and everything in between up against Rupert’s equivalents – and Rupert growled in response, dropping one hand so he could wrap that arm around Eoin’s back and drag him up nearer still.

Within moments they were clutching each other close, mouths ravenous, and fingers digging bruisingly into flesh. It was a cliché, Rupert knew, from almost every film ever made – but this time they weren’t acting it out. This time it was real. He took a step towards the bed, and Eoin stumbled back – and then they were tearing and pulling at each other’s clothes, wrenching them off, breaking the kiss only when they had to.

They were still half-clothed when Eoin backed up against the bed. Rupert grasped the man by the waist and hefted him across it, then crawled up with his knees either side of those legs, to end up straddling Eoin’s hips. Stretching up tall, Rupert hauled his shirt off over his head, not bothering with the remaining buttons. They were both bare-chested now, and Eoin was such a  _fine_ specimen…

“ _Christ_ , you’re hot,” Eoin averred in that warm burr, staring up at Rupert as if impressed.

Rupert shrugged this off, but his hands dropped to unbutton and unzip Eoin’s jeans, and then wrestle them down just far enough to give him room to play. Eoin’s briefs were flatteringly taut over his excitement. Rupert’s jeans were already undone, thanks to Eoin’s sense of priorities. Rupert pushed his own jeans down just far enough as well, and then let himself fall forward with his hands either side of Eoin’s shoulders, sliding his legs back as he went so he was lying along this gorgeous man. He took his weight onto his elbows, and slid one hand below Eoin’s head to cradle it, to bring him up for another never-ending devouring kiss…

They were both too impatient, too eager to last. Their hips were already rolling against each other by instinct. Rupert reached down between them to push his own briefs out of the way, and then Eoin’s. When he sank down again, their cocks pressed hard together – and the sensation crackled through them both so intensely that they gasped.

Staring down into Eoin’s unshuttered gaze – at last seeing something of the truth that lay behind the man’s usual clever knowing humour – Rupert began a slow thrust that Eoin seemed to find as devastating as Rupert himself did. Eoin lifted his hands to run marvelling over Rupert’s hair, his shoulders, and then down to the small of his back where they encouraged him, urged him on. Rupert maintained the steady pace, though it took all his self-control.

“Christ…” Eoin was groaning. “That’s so… That shouldn’t feel so… so fuckin’  _good_.”

“Good?” Rupert grunted.

“That’s the most amazin’ fuckin’ thing I ever –” Eoin arched back, and Rupert slid an arm under him to hold him there – finally let himself thrust harder. The end was a certainty now. Eoin bucked up against him, fingers digging into his flesh. “So damn’ direct.  _That’s_  the fuckin’ mother lode,  _right God-damn’ there_.”

Eoin’s seed pulsed between them, and for long confused moments Rupert thrust against the heaven of slippery blisses. But then Eoin dragged him down for a kiss, and Rupert’s climax welled up from somewhere deep within him, welled up and rippled out, and left him serenely floating in wide calm pleasure.

♦

## Cardiff

“We’re a bad match,” said Eoin, despite the fact that he was sprawled naked and delectable across Rupert, with his head heavy on Rupert’s chest, and everything felt so perfectly right between them. They were in Rupert’s hotel room. These days they spent almost every free moment in Rupert’s hotel room, having all kinds of fun – despite which Eoin repeated, “We are  _such_  a bad match.”

“Unlikely perhaps,” Rupert said, hardly managing to stir himself into even that much of a protest. “Not  _bad_.”

“Oh, we are, though. Together we exceed the acceptable limits on good hair.”

Rupert laughed. “Is that so?”

“That  _is_  so. Even with just one of us, we’re sailing pretty close to the line.”

“I am  _not_  cutting my hair for you.”

“God forbid! Oh, the things I would do to you, if you even thought about it…”

Rupert lifted his head to fix Eoin with a quizzical stare. “ _What_  things?”

“The very wickedest things of all…”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Rupert said in his best deadpan. “You’d better show me.”

“Thank Christ,” said Eoin, with a purposeful glint in his eye, “I was seriously beginning to think you’d never ask.”

♦

 

**Author's Note:**

> Artist Acknowledgements: I was delighted to have another opportunity to work with the ever amazing and wonderful mrs_leary; thank you so much for writing such a delightful fic for me to illustrate! Many thanks are also due, as always, to my betas, Amphigoury and Alby-Mangroves, whose unflagging attention to detail literally helped polish this one up (among other good catches, they made me put more shine on the links of the maille :D). And last but not least, many many thanks are due to Archaeologist_D, who unwittingly provided me with wonderful references from her vast collection of behind the scenes photos of the cast while filming on location; bless you, you're a wonder, and we almost certainly don't deserve you.


End file.
